Quiet Pavement

PHOENIX – Drivers are already noticing a smoother ride on Interstate 17, and there’s more on the way as crews work to resurface more than 10 miles of the freeway between the downtown area and north Phoenix with a fresh layer of rubberized asphalt.

As the Arizona Department of Transportation’s $9.8 million I-17 Improvement Project between Dunlap and 19th avenues approaches the halfway mark, crews have already paved six miles southbound and five miles northbound.

Back in the early 2000s ADOT started to hear from drivers who said certain stretches of Valley freeways seemed quieter than others. ADOT and the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) noticed a difference, too. It seemed that areas paved with an asphalt rubber friction course (rubberized asphalt), which MAG funded through the Regional Transportation Plan, were less noisy than freeway surfaces with cement concrete pavement.